6 steps to grow medical group leadership within the system

Is your hospital-employed medical group ready for more responsibility?

For many advanced groups, the answer is "yes." Having mastered the core basics of physician practice management, these groups are expanding their strategic focus, assuming additional oversight for key functions within the health system—such as service line growth or care management—that cut across the traditional ambulatory/inpatient divide.

This expanded leadership role puts the medical group in a favorable position to truly shape health system strategy on key initiatives, rather than simply responding to strategic decisions made by others. Indeed, where this trend is most advanced, the distinction between medical group and hospital leadership blurs; the medical group is treated not as something to be managed off to the side, but rather as an integral player in determining health system success.

This type of integration is especially important today, as health systems confront an ever-growing list of challenges—from MACRA and rising consumerism to reimbursement reform—that all seem to demand an immediate response. Yet the majority of medical groups have not yet achieved this level of leadership within their parent health systems.

How can your medical group change this dynamic? Medical groups can take these six steps to accelerate the shift toward a more integrated system leadership role:

Prioritize your medical group's activities

Assess your medical group's primary and unique capabilities

Understand market readiness for new functionalities

Analyze broader physician dynamics within your system

Raise your medical group's profile

Report a holistic picture of your medical group's performance

Constantly emphasize group-system symbiosis

Foster development of new system administrators

Medical Group Strategy Council and Physician Practice Roundtable members can download our new research briefing, Medical Group on the Rise, to learn more about how to implement these six steps at your own organization.

How to achieve ROI on your medical group investment

Medical groups invest more than $240,000 per employed physician each year. How should health system leaders measure and increase the value of those investments? Download this guide to understand medical group value beyond profit and loss economics.